Daniel Gros is Director of the Brussels-based Center for European Policy Studies. He has worked for the International Monetary Fund, and served as an economic adviser to the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the French prime minister and finance minister. He is the editor of Economie Internationale and International Finance.

Regrettably what this article advocates is an EU border force which will lead to an EU army and an eventual confrontation with Russia. Schengen was a bad idea just like Euro. You can erode centuries of individual cultures and millenniums of history just by putting a few political ideals in place. If a united EU is to happen it will take generations of education and investment which can only happen in vibrant economies and not even the most optimistic economist would describe the EU as Vibrant. Bad idea a century of a common market first then start thinking about borders and politics...

@Klein: Of all European nations, Germans know best that religious warfare with geopolitical implications can all but destroy any country. Why do Syrians and Iraqis come to Europe ? Because on our continent ethnic and religious wars (save the Yugoslav exception) were fought more than three and a half centuries ago. Since then, religious tolerance became the norm and Europeans moved to other, not necessarily less devastating, conflicts and wars.

What is now happening in Libya, Syria and Iraq is incompatible with the achievements of human civilisation. As long as Gaddafi or Assad were in power, these types of religious and ethnic conflicts were kept in check and Europe did not experience immigration waves it couldn't control.

Worse still, as of a few years ago, Turkey has ceased to be a secular society and started reverting to Ottomanism, especially when it comes to its geopolitical agenda. Ottoman language and writing have been reintroduced in schools two years ago and the current Turkish leadership is trying to actively regain its lost influence within the Arab world. As long as they used soft power means to that end (economic ties, widely distributed TV series and the like) no harm was done. As of 2011 however, the Turkish leaders have sensed the opportunity to grab territory from neighbouring Syria, hosted and armed the free Syrian army and has given full political support and money not only to Morsi in Egypt but also to Assad's opposition, headquartered in Istanbul. Clearly, such policies are at odds both with modern times and with the core interests of the Western Alliance in the Middle East.

I am inclined to agree with the Obama Administration's refusal to be dragged militarily into the thick of the conflict in Syria or Iraq. When one's religion and ethnicity become the root causes of armed conflict, such people should be allowed to play it out to the end in order to come back to their senses. Following that, it's up to the UN to pick up the pieces, broker peace agreements and help nations so affected to rebuild their countries. The only things I do not agree with is for inordinate amounts of weaponry being provided to the combatants in the field, or bombing campaigns which are not connected with any ground operations and only aggravate the locals' historical misgivings against participating countries.

@Steve Hurst:
How do you want to keep desperate people out, short of killing them? And on what moral basis?
As for Schengen, there have been a few months of difficulties now, and I don't see how this could possibly justify risking the results of 50+ years of European integration and cooperation. Just to put things in perspective...

Pick a figure - 60 million displaced worldwide, shortly updated to 250 odd million displaced, both UN figures. You may as well double it. There is Global Warming in process. Now I suggest you pick a figure that you think can practically be implemented as migration to Germany with a population of 80 million Germans. I can guarantee it will be less than the number who want to go to Germany

So the issue is not who you let in but who you keep out

In the face of porous borders due to geography or ineptitude Schengen external borders have at this point failed and it is unproven at this point that they can be reinstated

Germanys very brief open door migration policy has failed. Schengen has failed. Einstein said keeping on doing the same thing and exopecting a diferent result is the definition of madness. Neither policies are likely to be revisited as they were, thats the outcome. The EU is not in its right mind - Nobody in their right mind would pick Greece to border patrol - Greece has an extremely large number of islands, with estimates ranging from somewhere around 1,200 to 6,000, depending on the minimum size to take into account. The number of inhabited islands is variously cited as between 166 and 227. On a human rights basis nobody sensible would contract with Turkey to be gatekeeper, and that is before Turkeys porous border with Syria is considered

I can mostly agree, even if "religion" is usually just the pretext covering struggles for economic and political power, be it in Europe or the Middle East, and even if "soft power" can also be quite harmful in that it foments conflict in many cases. But the question remains: Why do western powers (along with others, in this case Turkey) overthrow governments in other parts of the world and arm rebel militias? And if they do, aren't they in some way responsible for the outcome?

I'm not sure whether Turkey of someone else was first in supporting the Syrian opposition, but we know western countries did contribute with arms, money, training - and manpower, lets not forget that many IS fighters come from Europe! Also we were fully aware of the fact that Saudi Arabia and Qatar funded the islamists in Syria, yet did nothing to stop it.

However big or small the European contribution to the creation of the conflict may have been, we can't deny that it exists. And as I said, we should see it as an opportunity to learn how to handle refugees coming here, since the Syrians won't be the last. It's been predicted for decades that (tens of) millions of people would one day migrate to Europe, driven from their home countries by wars, natural disasters or simply by hunger. Refusing them entry is not an option, since a person fleeing for his or her life can't be stopped by any fence. So we'd better learn to adapt.

@Klein:
For almost two decades now, a bunch of Western academics and politicians, especially from America (see the Princeton Project), have been bent on undermining the UN and replacing it with an organisation more pliable to Western interests. One that can declare wars at a moment's notice.

My comparison with the plight of the Vietnamese is fitting in the case of Syria. For most in the West, the Assad regime is viewed as a Soviet-era relic and the efforts to topple it have an important ideological component, as indeed in Libya or Iraq.

For the past 60 years, the Middle East has been the sole preserve of the United States, not that of any European nation, least of all Germany. Whilst Europeans could provide assistance on humanitarian grounds, the US should have been the first country to help clean up the mess left behind by the war in Iraq, for example, or the covert support for anti-Assad rebels.

Instead, Merkel behaved more like a German Kaiserin than a Chancellor, going against the wishes of most European nations and her own coalition partners in Germany, on the refugee issue. In so doing, she gave the Turks the impression that the EU can be blackmailed for money and even for visas or accession talks. For the neo-Ottoman Turks, the 3 billion euros are just a first installment, many other financial assistance requests being sure to follow. As matters now stand, after the conclusion of the November agreement, 4,000 refugees per day have still crossed the sea to Greece in December !

The Turks are thus building on a long and established tradition of extracting tribute from weak European states in order to preserve the peace of the contributing countries. Or, what Mrs Merkel has done, in effect, is to make the entire EU tributary to Turkey for its security and social peace. The lure of cheap labour has also prompted her to put German social peace in jeopardy for decades to come.

An alternative course of action would have been to get tough with the Turks a month or two after this summer's refugee wave started, and to impose severe economic sanctions on this country for unleashing it. Turkey depends on EU states for half of its exports and German tourists are the biggest group holidaying in Antalya. As the Turks succeeded in policing the flux of refugees for 4 whole years, they should have been obliged to continue to do so, especially because they got involved early with the anti-Assad coalition and therefore they are at least as responsible as the Americans for the debacle there. Needless to say, ALL European heads of state would have endorsed such a policy, without any divisions whatsoever...which is not currently the case.

Imposing sanctions on Turkey for its handling of refugees on its territory does not mean that Europe should not help refugees, select some of them from Turkey, Lebanon,etc, and help feed the rest who are still forced to live in camps - but only via UN agencies. Harsh as this might appear, the Syrians themselves will learn that there are consequences to starting armed rebellions which fail to achieve their intended results. In this way, they will think three times before taking up weapons against their own government.

Sorry, but while a agree with many details, you still fail to take into account the basic realities of this conflict.
The US will not clean up the mess and there is no way to force them. Turkey had its share in fuelling the conflict, but so did European states. So the refugees are a shared responsibility.
You mention that Europe should allow some Syrians in - that's kind, but why hasn't it done anything like that in the past four years, letting them live in huge camps instead? There are four or five million Syrians living outside their country. Turkey has 80 Million inhabitants, Lebanon 6 million, Jordan 7. The EU...500 Million or so. Saying that others should help first is nothing but a lame excuse when we have the possibilities ourselves.
Merkel did not act against her coalition partner, quite the contrary. And there was not much choice since Turkey probably wanted to get Europe's approval for a no-fly-zone in Syria which would have escalated the conflict with Russia beyond control.

We should take this as a good opportunity to learn. After all, we're talking about very few people migrating to Europe today - there will be many more fleeing from wars, climate change and hunger in the future, esp. from Africa.

@Klein: To my chagrin, you are partially right, too. During the 90s the Spanish concluded a bilateral agreement with neighbouring Morocco - like Turkey, also a Muslim country - to return promptly the thousands of refugees trying to cross to Europe. The agreement is still in force today and it works. Unfortunately, no such agreement is possible between Turkey and Greece. NATO has been forced over the past few decades to have a dedicated surveillance centre in order to prevent military conflicts between the two countries. Such an agreement, concluded by the Commission and Turkey on the other hand, might yield the same outcome as the Spain-Morocco bilateral treaty.

What is worrisome is the fact that the US continuously pushes the Europeans to accept a few million Syrian refugees, whilst doing next to nothing themselves: no financial contributions and only ten thousand refugees accepted in America. Worse still, by zeroing in on the Europeans, the UN is being side-tracked in this particular crisis, even if they should be (like before) the main international institution coordinating migrant flows, asylum policy, repatriations and the like. For the first time in recent history, there is no truly international effort to solve this migrant crisis. This did not happen in the 70s and 80s with the "boat people" from Vietnam, when ALL Western countries agreed to offer asylum to hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese refugees blocked in S-E Asian camps.

No migrant crisis should determine the US, the EU or Turkey to depart from the UN provisions for assisting refugees, or from the basic tenets of international law. An illegal border crossing should still be viewed as illegal, irrespective of the number of migrants involved or the shortcomings of the EU's external border policing.

From my part, I am sure that even two or three thousand Frontex agents or other EU agency currently being considered would not be able to stem the flow of illegal immigrants into Europe, if Turkey decides again to allow them free passage to its Aegean borders.

No, probably Frontex would not be able to stop it - only to make the border crossing much more dangerous as has happened between Morocco and Spain. By the way, until 2008 Spain happily accepted migrants to have cheap labour for their (export) agriculture, only recently did they start returning them.

While you are right about the lack of truly international commitment, I don't see how knowing this helps us in any way in the current situation. The USA are simply much farther away, and in any case this can't mean that four million people should be forced to stay in a handful of middle eastern countries. Lebanon hosts more than a million Syrian refugees - and has itself only a population of 4,5 million. So how can wealthy Europe say "not here, please"?

Also afaik it is also wrong to say that "for the first time there is no international effort": How many Sudanese, Liberians or Congolese were hosted by western countries in the 90s and 00s? How well-funded were the refugee camps in the regions? Vietnamese boat people are a different story because the regime there was an ideological enemy at the time, so western states had a vested interest in highlighting the plight (and flight) of its people.

@Klein & all commentators: Let's face it, the only intelligent EU proposal so far is that of processing asylum seekers in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon and resettling them without putting their lives in danger as is the case now. This has been the UN standard procedure until recently and I believe the number of existing camps in Turkey should be complemented with at least an equal number of UN-run camps. This is indeed an area where the international community, with Turkish authorities, can jointly take responsibility for the fate of the migrants. Naturally, the existing and new refugee camps should be adequately financed and administered, which unfortunately hasn't been the case in recent years. As matters now stand, refugees enjoy very few rights in Turkey and are subjected to exploitation by Turkish employers, while also lacking schooling and medical care for their families. In many cases they even lack food and shelter, which forces them to risk their lives to reach the more civilized countries of Europe. Simply giving money to the Turks would provide them with an added incentive to continue to treat migrants not as humanitarian cases, but as cash cows.

After these policies become operational, all migrants trying to reach Europe without lodging a prior asylum application with the UN authorities in Turkey, Jordan or Lebanon should be automatically returned to Turkey, which should drop its objections to their readmission. This solution is less convoluted and more logical than the miracle flying force peddled by EU federalists, which is downright ridiculous. Among other shortcomings, the new EU expanded Frontex proposals will not serve the well-being of would-be migrants and would only provide the illusion of a more secure continent.

If legal means of emigrating to the EU will thus be opened to refugees currently living in Middle Eastern camps, illegal migration will slow to a trickle and then stop. The solution of returning illegal migrants to Turkey has the added merit of not requiring additional personnel for securing the borders, whether in Greece or Turkey.

In theory I agree.
Just I don't see how Turkey can be convinced to keep refugees and treat them humanely, and how (many) EU states can be convinced to allow more than a symbolic number of refugees into their countries in the near future. The way migrants are treated in Turkey today, forcefully returning them there amounts to a crime, and if very few are admitted into the EU, the dangerous irregular crossings will continue.

Bewildering that the author found not even One iota of salvation in Security discussions from the One Pillar that has guaranteed Peaceful Europe.
For 70 Years since the end of hostilities in 1945, NATO has been the bedrock upon which European Security is predicated.
Disbanding NATO will render all intellectual discussions of European Security meaningless.
Yet and despite the plunder in Paris weeks ago, it seems NATO is remembered for only one reason.
When European BOTG (boots on the ground) cannot achieve salvation alone.
Without America's BOTG.
France is in the driver's seat with Paris @ The Heart of Europe - and needs to articulate the perfect response.
The Mediterranean is in Meltdown, and France is its best hope.
The delusional limitations of European capacities must be grounded in The Atlantic salvation.

Daniel Gros sees an urgency of beefing up security along the Mediterranean coast, as Europe's southern backyard will remain the key challenge for a while, "owing both to illegal immigration and its proximity to terrorist training grounds." Following the refugee crisis and terrorist attacks on Paris, France and Germany have reinstated border controls, while "the vast majority of other borders remain open." Elsewhere, countries in the Balkans have tightened control and set up barbed wire fences along their borders to stem the flow of refugees crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey to Greece. These measures are indeed at odds with the spirit of the Schengen agreement - “Europe without borders.”
Gross says we, Europeans will be facing serious problems, if the principle of "Europe without borders" is being sacrificed as a tradeoff for security. Crossing borders for work, study or leisure has become the everyday life of hundreds of thousands of Europeans. Leaving the financially overstretched countries of southern Europe to deal with the influx of refugees on their own is no solution. Would the suspension of Schengen make Europe safer? Gross sees it as an obstacle to fighting terrorism, because the much valuable resources would be allocated to border controls instead of to intelligence.
Initially the Schengen system was meant to secure the EU’s external borders, so that internal borders could be removed, in order to promote cross-border collaboration between police forces to combat crime. Moreover, the Dublin regulation stipulates that the country where a refugee first enters the EU is the place where he/she must seek asylum. Trust among EU members is crucial. The Swedes have to be able to rely on the Greeks to "protect external borders adequately." The French need to know that the Belgians are investigating terrorist suspects and passing the relevant information on to them. Poland wants to be assured that refugees crossing the Mediterranean have applied for asylum in Italy.
In light of instability in the Mediterranean region, Gross proposes an European coast guard to replace Frontex, whose scope of activities is said to be limited. The new coast guard could be financed with EU funds, which would "provide a flexible tool with which to allocate resources as effectively as possible at any given moment." As a crisis situation is always fluid, "challenges can shift considerably over time." So, we need to be prepared "for any eventuality." Gross sees "both openness and security" as compatible, with the former bolstering the latter. He says countries with the Schengen "need to recognize that the security rationale for abolishing internal borders remains as compelling today as it was when they joined." His proposal makes sense!

In trying to recommend an European coast guard force as a solution to this year's migrant crisis, the author advances a federalist agenda that will not help stop illegal immigration from Turkey in any way.

The distance by sea between the Greek islands of Castellorizo, Kos, Chios or Lesbos and Turkey ranges from 1.4km to 6km. Most of the territorial waters around these islands are Greek, with endless disputes with Turkey on this issue still pending. To further complicate matters, Turkey does not recognize the water frontier decisions of the International Court of Justice. Regardless of who patrols these stretches of the sea, the Greek coast guard or an European coast guard, soon after leaving Turkish shores illegal migrants are actually reaching Greek territorial waters. According to the Law of the Sea, illegal migrants have to be rescued, arrested and brought in for questioning by the country patrolling the territorial waters, i.e. Greece. This means that an European coast guard would only mean spending more money than the Greek coast guard for basically the same outcome. So why have it in the first place ? The only significant breakthrough could be achieved if refugees picked up in Greek territorial waters could be re-admitted into Turkey the next day, which is not currently the case. Obviously, a military solution to the problem - the sinking of refugee boats, forcing them back towards Turkish waters, and so on - goes against the Law of the Sea and therefore is not feasible.

As matters now stand, Turkey is responsible for gravely endangering the security of its NATO allies, from Greece through to Germany and beyond, and its current laxity in securing both its Syrian and Aegean borders should come under close scrutiny within the Alliance's high command. (One cannot be a NATO member and create a major security threat for its allies at the same time, it's illogical.)

Definitions notwithstanding, it can never be illegal to flee from a deadly civil war, political/ religious/... persecution or hunger. The universal right to life is a more important legal norm than national laws. While I can't say anything about your personal story, I do hope that you were treated kindly when you arrived in Yugoslavia.
You're partly right about Turkey imo, even if I'm not sure what you mean by "islamic geopolitics". But you forget two things: The refugees are the consequence of a war fueled by Europe, among others. So why should Turkey host all of them for another four years? And secondly, whatever we think of Turkey's politics, the EU has to deal with its government in one way or another. The country is simply too big and important to refuse to cooperate with it.

I admit it's a very difficult situation for the EU, having to save the Schengen agreement and secure humane living conditions for the refugees, while simultaneously taking concerns within many European states seriously. But refusing to compromise and laying all the blame on others are sure to make things worse, not better.

Dear Mr. Klein, I'm probably missing the point because I'm an average EU citizen and therefore not as smart as a German. Please excuse me, what can I do ? I'm a former refugee myself and, unlike you, I know what it means to be one; I have been a former border patrol officer, as well. Many people are talking nonsense concerning illegal immigration (defined as the act of crossing a country's border without its permission). In the '80s, I myself have crossed the Hungarian border to Yugoslavia illegally, but surrendered after 2km inside the country to the first police station in Ridica (I would have surrendered to the Yugoslav border guards, but there were none in sight at the time). I did not even try to go further into Europe illegally and I submitted myself to the mercy of Yugoslav authorities, which in 1981 could have very easily decided to repatriate me, as all countries in the region were still communist. These days, you should ask the people in Paris how they feel about illegal Syrian immigration within the EU :)

I'm therefore not against migration per se, but I abhor the way Turkey has suddenly released hundreds of thousands of their religious brethren from Syria upon the EU in the space of a few months, and subsequently blackmailed European leaders for cash handouts. This conduct is unbecoming of a veteran NATO member. True enough, when Turkey was admitted into NATO it was a secular country and the military had a big say in its political affairs. As of 13 years ago, we are dealing with an Islamic country with an Islamic geopolitical agenda and we in Europe have to suffer the fallout from this mega-transformation of Turkish society (for the worse, it comes out...).

One can if one wants to, ask Erdogan;-)
You're missing the main point: The idea is not to reduce migration (which is never "illegal", maybe "irregular"), but to prevent countries from closing their borders within the Schengen zone thus endangering the European integration.

In the context of implementation of EU Single Market (SM), Schengen (1985) became more or less inevitable. After 1989, the fall of Berlin Wall & Soviet Union, expansion to east was enforced by US to isolate Moscow from its former vassals. Simultaneously NATO debate became vociferous principally because EU sought to establish its own (non-US) security system. It never worked. No hardware or budget capacity to militarize EU defense.
So, what Daniel is invariably pleading for is sanctity of SM & EMU. Although the conviction is growing that fall of either institutions will become inevitable with fall of Schengen....

While I agree with the basic ideas, the article leaves me wondering what the author wants Frontex to do on its mission in the Mediterranean: The refugees will continue arriving no matter what, and a few coast guard boats probably won't be enough to ferry them all to Europe...?

The assumption that "the eurozone survived its crisis" is simply wrong. The crisis is just covered with a permanent breach of the rule of law, namely monetary financing by the central bank in breach of TFEU art. 123. So to put the ECB as shining example for the advantage of supra-national administration is treacherous. At least in the real existing EU, it turns out that in a supra-national framework, the people (the demoi) have just nothing to say anymore (Greek and Portuguese people are forced to austerity against their will, the German people are forced to hand over their purchasing power, their pension savings and their deposit insurance against their will and so on). On the national level, the elites would be bound by a constitution and by democratic control. On the supra-national level, however, they are obviously not (otherwise the ECB would have been stopped long time ago).

So why then hand over even more sovereignty when this is used to further suppress democracy and the rule of law (as the experience from the past shows)? Why then trust these people anymore after all those lies and broken promises and broken treaties? Why not abstain from all the siren songs and adhesion contracts they keep palming you with? Why not stop listening at all to them?

1. You cannot take the eurozone as a whole. You have to consider 19 individual member states. And for some of them, like Italy, the euro is overvalued. And as single member states cannot devalue the euro on their own, the only solution is to improve your competetiveness by structural reforms (of course, in reality, the treaties are broken and the central bank in best Italian tradition buys Italian debt so that structural reforms can be postponed). But that's exactly what Germany did in the 2000's, structural reforms, wage cuts, thus separating fiscal and monetary policies in the best German tradition.

2. I agree that the idea was probably to enforce political union later by introducing monetary union now. But that was a reckless, audacious all-or-nothing gamble which now destroys the credibility and the acceptability of the whole project. In normal situations, the constitution would prevent gamblers and liars from rushing through callow projects but the system was obviously corrupt already back then and too many believed the ideologic soap bubbles told by the gamblers and liars. But at some point, they cannot avoid their rendezvous with reality anylonger and then the whole edifice breaks down and the soap bubbles burst.

1. That's pure ideology and simply wrong. The Eurozone has a trade surplus, so the currency can't be overvalued - according to economic theory, it should appreciate. The (main) problem is not lack of "reforms", but the fact that Germany didn't stick to the rules by lowering its wages in the 2000's. Due to German export policies, the Eurozone suffers from low demand and therefore low growth.

2. We see that customers forget the lies after a few months...and that fines are very low, if any. But yes, I certainly agree that politicians should be more serious about respecting the constitution. In most cases though, what they do is "forget to mention" certain details or express their (entirely unrealistic) "hopes", so it's difficult to classify it as "lying" even if it's not the truth. In the case of the introduction of the Euro, my guess is that many politicians were fully aware that the system would be unstable (cf. Gysi: https://le-bohemien.net/2015/07/03/gregor-gysi-der-prophet/), but also knew that the necessary instruments would be politically impossible to implement at the time. So they just went ahead anyway and waited for the crisis that would force the countries to draw the necessary institutional consequences. Closer political integration (including changing national constitutions) was thus enforced via factual economic necessities.

Yes, we can recognize that doing so was not a very democratic way of transferring sovereignty. But this doesn't help us much in the situation we find ourselves in today: We have a single currency, and we slowly realize that this necessarily means sharing a lot more than just a central bank. The question today is not whether or not we coordinate fiscal and economic policies (thus giving up more sovereignty), but *how* we do it. If we continue doing it the Greek way, impoverishing further millions, the Euro won't last very long - careful what we wish for...

1. That's true, but the lack of growth/the deflationary environment is due to an overvalued currency and the lack of structural reforms. The Maastricht deal was never to get monetary stability for free, the Maastricht deal was never to replace your reform fatigue with the savings from other countries.

2. Well you see with VW what happens if a company cheats their customers. And on "tactical" lying, it might be necessary at times but it always has to stay within the limits set by your constitution. Otherwise, it's autocracy or despotism. My expectation that state authority should respect the constitution is surely not "too high". Now the question is how could that happen that the "system" contradicts the constitution? Obviously, those people who decided to introduce the single currency lacked respect for the constitution. If that is true then I would call them the true enemies of Europe. In my opinion, to recognize this proposition would have to be the first step in finding a solution to the Euro crisis.

1. True, but Italy would also have much higher inflation. The current deflationary Euro environment is not good at all for endebted states as old debt is not inflated away. Sorry for not being precise enough, I was referring to *real* interest, which is not so much political as economical.

2. By definition, a politician can't always tell the (entire) truth because his words can have an enormous impact. S/he has to be overoptimistic and omit some unpleasant details to try and create a self-fulfilling prophecy. So I'm afraid your expectations are simply too high and can never be met. Would you expect a company to tell you the negative aspects of their product or service? Not really.
So if the legal framework is illogical/ contradictory, what should be done in your opinion? Just let everything crash because "the laws"? We (decided to) have a single currency, and this entails certain consequences.

1. The current interest rates are purely political. Without the Euro, Italy would never have rates below zero and below the US. The Euro is very nice for overendebted countries! So yes, I would have complained about distorted interest rates back in the 2000's if I had known back then. But back then I still believed the official propaganda.

2. TFEU is ignored since 10th May 2010 and forever since up to this day. And no, we don't have to adjust the legal framework. We have to oust those politicians who tell their people lies. This is the crux of the matter, do those rule who think they know better (i.e. autocracy) or do the people rule (i.e. democracy). If the people are not told the (whole) truth then I would call it autocracy and thus breach of the constitution. If it's breach of the constitution and nothing happens then I call the system rotten.

1. Trade surplus pre-dates QE and OMT, consequence of the Euro being weaker than the DM. Low interest has nothing to do with the Euro and everything with lack of growth. And I guess you didn't complain about the high interest on Spanish bonds in the 2000's, did you? German banks sure didn't...

2. A referendum? Nice idea, but by the time it would have been held, the system would have collapsed leaving nothing to vote on. The TFEU contains fatal logical errors and had to be ignored in this case. A common currency without some form of common fiscal & economic policy is impossible, and anyone who thought it through knew this in 1999 - just most politicians didn't want to tell people the (whole) truth. Now we have to deal with this dilemma and adjust the legal framework.

1. Those are only unsustainable "flash-in-the-pan" benefits based on the artificially undervalued currency. Set against it are the long-term costs of inflationary monetary policy (QE, OMT etc.), low interest rates, de facto liability for bankrupt foreign governments (ANFA, Target2, ESM etc.), de facto liability for instable foreign banking systems (EDIS, ELA etc.), legal uncertainties, political destabilization of neighboring countries, loss of trust into state authority and so on.

2. No, "the people" represented by a democratically legitimated parliament vote on fiscal policy and set the legal framework (e.g. prohibition of debt monetization and of fiscal transfers between nations, TFEU 123/125) while the independent, democratically non-legitimated ECB votes on monetary policy thereby operating within this legal framework and in accordance to the rule of law.
To put it short: The ECB never had the right to abolish the rule of law and to engage in fiscal policy and redistribution of wealth between nations in order to prevent the breakup of the eurozone. The legal approach would have been to hold a referendum in Germany.

200 Billion Euro trade surplus & low unemployment in Germany thanks to the Euro.
The European and national institutions decide about the future of Europe. Would you want "the people" to vote on monetary policy? Not really, I guess.

It may not be easy to control the cross-nations movement because of the dimension of the Schengen Agreement. Certainly, the member-states still need sometimes to improve weaknesses cause undesired consequences. The improvement can only be done through the system. However, the issue seems to be the inability of member states to agree on a workable system rather than natural challenging issues emerged through Schengen Agreement . Abolishing the Schengen Agreement involves the risk of destroying some of the development that members states have made up to now and also not necessary means better security!

1 External border countries have to relinquish control to a central authority

Good luck with that

2 Borders curently porous have to be sealed

Good Luck with that

3 It follows that borders that are intrinsically porous should be ejected from Schengen and that new applicants to the EU should not be admitted whilst they have porous borders

Good Luck with that

It is irrelevent if there is a European Coastguard etc etc - First of all agreement between states is needed to cede to central authority. This is in direct contrast to the voter movement in almost every state against centralisation or the ceding of sovereign issues to another state who is considered to be acting on their own agenda. I cannot agree the idea 'Today it is the Aegean. Tomorrow it may be somewhere else. The locations are defined by geography. Hence the pretence the implementation applies potentially equally is misguided. The problem is localised and will remain localised. Implementaion will therefore be almost certainly politically unacceptable

Maintaining the Schengen-principle is vital. Equally vital is the control of the external borders and a border regime that needs the needs of migration, through hotspots or otherwise. Dublin needs to be amended/expanded and be brought to an operating order that is also agreeable to Lampdusa and Lesbos. What will however never work is a centralized border regime through Frontex or otherwise. The external borders of the EU are also the sovereign borders of the countries, the border regime must be run under the legal and parliamentary control of the countries. Frontex must be an advisory and control agency. All EU-28 must pay for the external borders, according to size and economic strength but a relevant and sufficiently detailed agreement is yet to be worked out. It cannot be worked out in a Sunday ER-summit, and it cannot be left to the EU-Commission which tends to see itself as supra-sovereign commander of everrybody, preferable without any real parliamentary control.

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